Jem Beedoo: Careful, you're only two feet away from a fashion crime

Tennis shoes were an integral part of The Ramones' grungy punk rock look.

If running didn't exist then it would be necessary to de-invent the running shoe. This could only be a good thing. The running shoe is as bad as it sounds, as ugly as it looks. It quite simply doesn't go with any item of clothing in a pleasing way. They (I say "they" as a running shoe has an identical twin, as we all know) are the graffiti-ed boat sheds of the shoe family - how revolting!

Even when shorts are sympathetic enough to portray them in an okay light, it still doesn't make for a pretty marriage. For shorts aren't exactly the pleasantest pieces of clothing either. Heck, certain Spanish men are two steps ahead of us in their refusal to wear shorts in public. No shorts, no running shoes, it's a very simple formula. We could all use a couple of Spanish lessons.

To walk in ski-boots - even unbuckled ones - is a nigh-on impossibility. It's a good thing one's vision is snowed to the eyeballs in the mountain car park, as a person looks more like a badly-chafed, drunken cowboy with half-broken heels rather than a hobbling, overburdened guy wondering why he made the ascent to pay the irredeemably high fee, when walking in ski-boots.

It's a good thing one's vision is nil; to be seen walking in ski-boots in broad daylight by a day-lit broad would be near nightmare.

Slippers, for all they're worth, aren't really slippery - not really. Can we rename them "slip-ons", or is that already patented, or too suggestive? For slippers are fluffy, like the inner-roof of a car, or the outer texture of an inner banana. (A banana skin, or squashed banana is superlatively slippery, but that's irrelevant for our purposes). The "slipper" tag is misleading. In point of fact, "grippers" would be a more apt name, for they grip more than they slip, do slippers.

Crocs are as ugly as they are comfortable - extremely. Now don't dare get water between the soles of your feet and these because you will slip, slip, slip! These are the true slippers. Anyhow, in terms of ugliness, these are unspeakably, unimpeachably thus. Rubberised-coloured-golf-ball-igloo-clogs posing as shoes, these. And how one can't overstate the ugliness! However, in saying that, one can't overstate the comfort of wearing Crocs either. If you want a foot massage and don't want to bother with the creepy, crappy real deal, look no further than Crocs. They will bless your soul and soles in an infinitude of bouncy, ticklish bliss. Bless your soles.

I'm too young to know what sandshoes are. Tennis shoes are the best. The Beach Boys wore them, as did The Ramones and many good '80s conservatives. Life cannot be taken seriously in tennis shoes. They are too absurdly white, like the outfit of a glowering South of France man, and so easily scuffed. In fact, after one wear they look as good as poo. You almost feel sorry for them. Now I don't profess to know anything of the types of tennis shoe beyond 1985, but they're still the cat's pyjamas. I can't explain why. It must be love.

School shoes are so bad one gets grief-stricken just thinking of them, much less talking about them.

Finally, shoelaces are unmanageable if you struggle to write your name legibly, so one can see why certain people shun shoes altogether.